TALIÑo
MINGLANILLA Police Station Commander, Chief Insp. Florendo Fajardo was relieved from his post while his men are under investigation by the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7).
This came after Fajardo’s admission that the persons they arrested during an illegal cockfight were made to sign a blank sheet of paper that later on tagged them as drug surrenderers.
PRO-7 Director Noli Taliño ordered Fajardo’s relief effective yesterday so he could not influence the investigation into the policemen who conducted the raid on the illegal cockfight last Christmas in Barangay Linao, Minglanilla.
“I was informed about that. That is why I directed the chief of police doon (Fajardo) to be relieved effective immediately (Thursday),” Taliño said.
“If we find out that Fajardo’s men were also involved in forcing people to sign the forms, we will also relieve them,” Taliño said in Tagalog.
Roger de Dios, director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Mines and Geosciences Bureau in the Caraga Region (DENR-MGB 13), on Tuesday complained that his son and more than 40 others were arrested and were made to sign a blank paper which they later realized listed them as surrenderers.
Minglanilla police officers raided the cockfight and allegedly arrested everyone there without confirming their involvement.
They were then brought to the police station and made to sign a blank piece of paper that was allegedly for the police station’s TokHang operations.
The document was then torn to pieces by Minglanilla police in front of Lawas and 22 residents from Barangay Linao, Minglanilla on Wednesday.